


Just Another Birthday

by fablefighter



Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Angst, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 20:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14776380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fablefighter/pseuds/fablefighter
Summary: When she was 25 years old, Kendra thought she'd thought everything through when she made the decision to become an eternal. She thought she was ready.She was not.





	Just Another Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> The first part of this was written about a year and a half ago and then completed later (I... am extremely forgetful, oops), so I'm sorry if the writing quality differs a little bit. Aside from that I'm proud of this, so enjoy! (Because Kendra sure as hell isn't enjoying it so someone might as well) 
> 
> Yeet

When Kendra agreed to become an Eternal, she thought that she'd thought through all the pros and cons. She was doing something important; she'd been training most of her life for this, and who else was better fit for the job? Fairykind at such an early age, saving the world, and all the missions after that, she had perfect qualifications. Overqualified, almost. When considering this she’d gone through all the upsides and downsides, weighed the idea of staying like this forever, becoming a living key, and… she’d agreed. Bracken was there to support and help her, and she was strong enough to deal with the other consequences. Right? 

She’d thought wrong. 

There had been a time, in the beginning, where Bracken had tried to talk her out of it. It was just after the final meeting had adjourned and the plans finally set in stone. Not the best meeting, all in all; no smiles, all seriousness. She’d been questioned for hours on end about emergency situations, safehouses, and (of course) if she was really sure about this, and Kendra was just tired of it all. The serious air hadn’t dissipated after everybody dispersed and she was left to trudge upstairs in hopes of maybe getting a few hours of sleep before tomorrow- 

A warm hand grabbed her wrist as she turned up the staircase. 

“Kendra.” Bracken’s face was tense. “I need to talk to you.” 

_Not again._ Bracken specifically hadn’t tried to talk her out of it yet today, but everybody else in the house had. It wasn’t like she hadn’t gone over this all already in her own head, but she was too tired for this right now. 

“Bracken, please. I just want to go to bed.” 

He shook his head, not budging. “I’m sorry, this can’t wait.” 

With a resigned sigh, she gently tugged out of his grip and took a seat on one of the stairs. “Fine.” 

“I know you’ve gone over this a lot already-” 

“We all have,” she interrupted. “A lot.” 

He stepped around the staircase railing and took a seat on a stair one below her, taking her hands in his and staring unflinchingly into her eyes. “This is different, Kendra. I know you want to do this, for everybody, for us, but I don’t think you realize what this’ll do to you. You never get used to it.” 

Kendra leaned forwards towards him. “Bracken, I have to do this. I’ve gone over it, it’s the right choice.” 

“But-” 

“No buts.” She smiled softly, and after a second, leaned in to give him a quick kiss before standing. “Now, I’m going to go sleep, because I’ve been in that stupid meeting for five hours and I’m tired.” As she turned to make her way towards the attic, she turned back to him. “It’ll be ok. I promise.” 

Bracken didn’t smile back. 

 

The first few years after she became an eternal, it had been fine. Great, actually, enough to have her wondering what exactly she’d been so terrified of in the first place. For a while Kendra had stayed around with her family and they all spent a couple happy years joking about how, “Found another gray hair this morning. That’s one thing Kendra’ll never have to worry about!” The situation was light and funny. What had once seemed serious now seemed like a gross overdramatizing of the reality, because it didn’t really affect them for the time being. Everybody more or less stayed the same, including Kendra, and it was easy for all of them to forget that she’d ever agreed to the deal in the first place, that she was any different from how she had been just a few short months ago. 

Then she and Bracken decided to go on a vacation. Originally, they’d planned it to just be a couple months, see the world (landmarks both mythical and human made), but it stretched itself out into five months, then six, seven, and before they knew it, they’d been gone for two years. Kendra wasn’t one to lose sight of consequences. She was grounded, for the most part, and thought things through… right? 

They decided to take a plane back home when Kendra’s homesickness finally grew to be too much to bear. She expected everything to be the same as when they left, and her chatter increased the longer they were in the air. She asked the little questions, the ones that popped up first in her mind. ‘I wonder if they finished with that annex yet? Do you think Vanessa and Seth finally finished that year long game of chess?’ 

But to the rest of the world, a lot can happen in two years. So when she stepped out of their car onto the gravel driveway, brushing off Bracken’s uneasy warning, Kendra rushed to wrap Warren in a bear hug and only after she’d let him go noticed the streaks of gray in his hair and the numerous scars that he informed her all had stories to go along with them. Then Vanessa came out with a ring on her finger (engagement only, she promised, they wouldn’t get married without Kendra there), and Grandma came outside to greet her while leaning on a cane, and what she’d done finally hit her. 

Kendra’s feet stumbled over the gravel to meet Grandma, wanting to rush into her arms but holding herself back at the last second and carefully hugging around the cane. She held on tightly, not even realizing she was shaking until her Grandma pointed it out, laughing. 

“Skipped breakfast,” she mumbled, reluctantly pulling back. 

She smelled like home. 

At the earliest time she could, Kendra excused herself from the group and hurried into the house, almost tripping over her own feet in her hurry, unaware of Bracken’s worried eyes following her as she left. 

She’d slammed the door behind her accidentally, and her unsteady hands had gripped the sink as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Five years ago she had stared in this mirror at this exact face. Nothing was different, not a single new smile line or small streak of gray. Not a single physical aspect about her had changed, and she wanted it too, desperately, because this had barely even started. It was too soon for all of this to be happening, right? This should be- spread out, not all… rushed like this. She was missing out on things she wanted to treasure, and there was _nothing_ she could do to stop it. 

Bracken found her fifteen minutes later, crying on the bathroom floor and pulling at her face, trying to get it to wrinkle or _change_ just one to show that she wash human too, that she could be there for all of them. He gently pried her hands away from her face and pulled her close, letting her cry into his shoulder until she couldn’t cry anymore. She didn’t have to say a word to him. 

He knew. 

 

Things didn’t get any better after that, despite how much she (and Bracken) hoped they would. Kendra stayed home more, keeping her trips limited, and in attempt to keep track of everything that happened she hid a notebook in her closet to record every event that transpired. It was an odd feeling, remembering everything that happened yet rushing them in her memories. Having things that she objectively knew took a long time fly by in the blink of an eye. It was like when she was in fifth grade and first realized that an hour wasn’t actually that much time, like it’d felt like when she younger. 

Seth wasn’t around as frequently. He’d taken after Patton and gone to travel the world, going undercover in hidden sanctuaries and pulling off increasingly dangerous stunts that made everybody reading his letters wince and half wonder if he’d even be in one piece by the time they received his next message. Kendra pinned each letter onto the board above her desk; even if it was just a quickly written, barely legible scrawl on a crumpled slip of paper. The others let her take them. She’d run her fingers over the paper, and often the spots of blood that would come on them, and wish he was here with here- although, she knew, that was selfish. After all, he wasn’t an immortal. He had to adventure while he could. 

Meanwhile, she and Bracken were flip flopping between spending time in the Fairy Kingdom and helping plan and set up Vanessa and Warren’s wedding. For Kendra, it was grounding to arrange all the tiny details that drove Vanessa up the wall. Every second that she could, she was helping make the flower arrangements, put finishing touches on the invitations (and tracking down the current addresses of the people they were being sent to, which was one of the more difficult tasks), and hastily taking over conversations about wedding cakes to ensure that Vanessa didn’t stab someone during their _far_ too in-depth explanation of decorative roses. Time consuming tasks, while being extraordinarily mind numbing, at least made time feel real. 

A week until the wedding, Kendra was waiting on the front steps for Seth to arrive. The early morning sunlight was straining to get through the clouds while she sat on the front steps, resting her chin against her hand and staring down the winding driveway. Seth had called, _actually called,_ for the first time in months yesterday morning to let them know he was going to be arriving today. Kendra had almost cried when she heard his voice on the phone, because no matter how much being an eternal was screwing with the rest of her life, it had been ages since she’d talked to him in any form that wasn’t a letter with a two week (at best) response time. Near the end of the conversation, he’d hesitated for a second before nervously telling her he was bringing a plus one. 

The tone of his voice made Kendra wonder if he was going to get out of the car with a mountain troll on his arm. 

She sighed and checked her watch again. 6:35 a.m. He should have been here a half hour ago according to his promise, but she’d let it slide as long as he got here soon and she didn’t have to sit on the ( very uncomfortable) stairs anymore. 

Almost as if on cue, her eyes trained on a small cloud of dust at the end of the driveway. Kendra jumped to her feet and squinted, watching the small and rather beat up blue car rattle its way towards the house. It wove past the threatening signs and drew closer quickly as Seth sped over the gravel, finally skidding to a halt no less than ten feet in front of Kendra. The driver side door was thrown open and Seth practically fell out of the car, a grin stretched across his face. A wave of relief washed over her, seeing him alive, in person. Happy. Her legs moved on her own and she quickly closed the short gap between him to wrap in a tight hug. 

“I missed you, idiot.” 

“I earned a lot of awesome dollars in your honor,” he said with a mock bow. “You shoulda seen me, you would’ve been proud.” 

“More like terrified, knowing you. I marked down at least two hundred idiots points based on your letters alone.” 

Seth laughed, the tone turning nervous as it petered out. He scratched the back of his head and cleared his throat, and Kendra noticed how much he’d matured. With a thin but painful looking scar tracing over his right cheekbone, wild hair, and a scattering of stubble, she realized how much he looked like Warren. They could have been brothers rather than cousins. 

Swallowing the painful lump in her throat, she smiled at him and glanced towards the car quizzically. There was someone in the passenger seat, but they were hidden by shadow. 

“So, you gonna introduce me to your plus one, or are you going to leave them to suffocate in the car?” she prompted gently. It was rare that he was this nervous. 

Seth nodded. He took another deep breath before beckoning to the person. The car door opened and out stepped a tall man about Seth’s age, dark brown hair swooping over his forehead in what appeared to be an attempt to cover part of a scar that matched Seth’s. He appeared out of place, standing uncertainty by the car, but when Seth smiled and held out his hand, he came forward and took it. 

“This is Ian. My boyfriend.” 

Oh. A brief flicker of surprise went through Kendra, eyes widening a fraction- that’s why Seth had been so anxious. She’d always suspected, but Seth had never said anything to her about it. 

A huge smile spread over her face and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Ian.” 

Seth looked so happy, they both did, and Kendra, for the first time in a while, felt genuine happiness. 

As they were walking back up towards the house, Kendra leaned in to whisper in her brother’s ear. “I’m so proud of you, Seth.” 

He grinned back at her, face aglow. “Awesome dollars, right?” 

“All the awesome dollars in the world.” 

 

Gray skies. Black umbrellas. A group of people standing all in dark colors against the trees. 

Kendra noted all these things carefully and methodically, adding each one to the mental list she was carefully keeping. Slowly, steadily, making objects out from the blurry drizzle of rain, or was it tears? She couldn’t tell. Not after this long. So instead, she kept counting and adding things to her list, the number of cups on the tables, the colors of the flowers, the sound of rain on the top of the canopy. 

They’d decided without any argument that Grandma Sorenson be buried at Fablehaven. The headstone was surrounded by wildflowers, tended by the fairies and bright even in the rain, but to Kendra they looked dull. Everything was dull. It was if all the color had been sucked out of the world leaving the rest of them to live in black and white, because how could there be color at a time like this? 

Her friends were there. Her family. Seth, Warren, and…. And Grandpa. He was standing by himself, out in the rain by her grave. He’d been trying so hard to keep it together for the sake of everybody around him, she could tell. Now, the perpetual gray of the rain, she watched as he fell to his knees on the wet grass and sobbed. His entire body shook, and though she was out of earshot, she saw his lips form the words “I love you” for the last time. 

At that moment, the sky fell on her. 

 

A hundred years. A hundred years since Kendra had become an eternal, and today she was 125. 

She would have remembered it even without Bracken’s gentle reminder that morning. No matter how much time passed and however much she lost track of what was going on, she still kept rigid track of what day it was, clinging to important dates like a lifeline. There were birthdays, like today, and now there were deathdays... she had yet to decide which were more painful for her. 

Most days she tried to be happy, to be happy living, and be the best partner she could be to the husband she loved more than anything. And some days it worked out that way; maybe they’d go see a movie, sit around playing board games, or just sit watching the ocean together. Some days, though, Kendra just couldn’t find it in herself to be happy. 

Today was one of those days. She’d woken up to the dull but painful ache in her heart that she was all too familiar with by now. Turning on her side, she was that Bracken’s side of the bed was already empty, smoothed out carefully as usual. The smell of breakfast wafted through the mostly closed bedroom door and she allowed herself a small smile. They always cooked breakfast for each other on their birthdays no matter what, even if they were isolated in the middle of some far-off preserve and the ‘breakfast’ was just slightly warmed and considerably stale raspberry poptarts (a particularly memorable day). 

But the smile wavered and fell as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was one of those days again, wasn’t it- where she had to force herself to even move out of bed and eat a bowl of dry cereal or whatever required the least effort to make. The noises of Bracken’s careful movements filtered around the cracked door and she took a deep breath, bracing herself to stand. She pushed off the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed in slow, methodical movements. She stayed like that for a minute, watching the ocean decorated wall in front of her and wishing she could lie back down again. 

There was a slight knock on the door before it creaked open slightly, revealing Bracken holding a plate piled with an unhealthy amount of pancakes with eggs and bacon on the side. 

“Breakfast delivery,” he sang quietly, stepping into the bedroom. “Happy birthday, Kendra.” 

She made her best attempt to smile back and hide the fact that she just wanted to curl into a ball, but he knew her too well. 

“One of those days?” His voice was gentle, soft. She nodded in response. 

He set the breakfast down behind her on the bed and Kendra felt his weight on the bed as he sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and allowing her to curl into his side. 

“I love you so much,” she breathed out, and with it came the pressure in her eyes, the ghost of tears that always came before she cried, a feeling she knew very well after the years. Bracken whispered the words in return, his arms tightening around her and his words murmured into her hair. 

For a moment, they sat like that, in silence, Kendra breathing in the scent of the only person keeping her tethered to this world, the only person keeping her sane. Then Bracken broke the silence once again. 

“Do you feel like doing anything today? Special day. We could even just go and sit on the beach for a while if you feel like it.” 

Kendra thought about the beach. She thought about the ever moving presence of the waves flowing on and off of the sand, the shells that they always collected together. She thought about the years they’d spent here, the years they’d spent at Fablehaven, the years they’d spent mourning funeral after funeral, and how each one had felt like a knife in the heart, twisted around every time the date came around in the year. About how years ago, they’d talked about having children, the possibility of having to watch their children grow old without them, and decided against it after she’d broken down into tears against his chest, both of them crying together on the floor. She thought about all the birthdays she’d spent with different people, in different places, and all the horrible things that she’d seen on this day. The last birthday she’d spend with all her family members. 

Kendra shook her head. 

“It’s just another birthday.” 

Another long, long birthday.

**Author's Note:**

> :)


End file.
